The writings on the wall

As pastor of Rock Spring Presbyterian Church in Atlanta Georgia, I am wondering about you. About the deeper part of yourself beyond a great night out with friends or the kickball championship your team wins at the local park. I’m wondering about the life you feel when you wake up every morning and choose to get out of bed.

What makes you get out of bed and go to work every day? Are you driven by the need for a paycheck?

Are you pushed because you need money to enjoy the fun things that make you feel good for a few hours every day or so? Are you a young parent who had no idea a child could cost so much?​Or does your paid work give you a sense of usefulness and meaning?

What moves you toward your unpaid daily labors? What gets you up to make breakfast? Or drop off the kids for daycare? Or rake the leaves and clean the gutters? Or clean up the pile of dirty dishes, empty wine glasses, and clothes strewn around your home?

What is the point of events and activities you look forward to?

I suspect more than a few of you thought, “to have fun, it makes me happy.” Is there more to being alive than fun and games, than doing what you want to do, when you want to do it? Some of my elderly friends and more than a few of my hospice patients have challenged this. Their question, after a lifetime of “having fun,” is, “is this all there is, my whole life has come to this?”

This question focuses us on a common aspect of being human: the search for meaning. This search distinguishes the human and animal spirit. Animals live for the moment. They rest, they hunt or gather. They reproduce. They die. Humans seek inspiration, emotional enlargement, accolades, growth. They, we, seek meaning and purpose in our resting-hunting-reproductive lives.

There was a successful businessman who asked the teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, how can I live forever? He already had a fortune. He was already known to be a strictly moral man obeying the law. Jesus (also known as Christ) said, “give up your holdings and come with me.”

To be alive, even eternally alive, is to be “alive in Christ.” To be alive is to be rooted in a life that connects with people not property. To be alive is to be able to choose a way of life that is rooted in something other than what you own, or what owns you. To be alive in Christ is to look at someone and love them and join together on the journey of life.

As Rock Spring church engages it’s new vision we are just getting started toward discovering the way of eternal life. It’s a journey. But not a journey of owning, gathering, holding. It’s a journey of giving, going, and gaining.

I hope you’ll join me and the church as we strive to follow Christ, come alive in new ways, and find common ground for the common good.